No abstract

Here, we report on a qualitative study that examined research information management (RIM) ecosystems on research university campuses from the perspectives of research information (RI) managers and librarians. In the study, we identified 21 RIM services offered to researchers, ranging from discovering, storing, and sharing authored content to identifying expertise, recruiting faculty, and ensuring the diversity of committee assignments. In addition, we identified 15 types of RIM service provision and adoption problems, analyzed their activity structures, and connected them to strategies for their resolution. Finally, we report on skills that the study participants reported as being needed in their work. These findings can inform the development of best practice guides for RIM on university campuses. The study also advances the state of the art of RIM research by applying the typology of contradictions from activity theory to categorize the problems of RIM service provision and connect their resolution to theories and findings of prior studies in the literature. In this way, the research expands the theoretical base used to study RIM in general and RIM at research universities in particular.

Video games that require players to utilize a target or second language to complete tasks have emerged as alternative pedagogical tools for Second Language Acquisition (SLA). With the exception of vocabulary acquisition, much of the prior research in game-based SLA fails to gauge students' literacy skills, specifically their morphological awareness or understanding of the smallest meaningful linguistic units (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, and roots). Given this shortcoming, we utilize a two-player online game to facilitate social interactions between Native English Speakers (NES) and English as a Second Language (ESL) students as a mechanism to generate ESL students' written output in the targeted language and draw attention to their morphological awareness. Analysis of chat logs demonstrates the game's potential to enhance ESL students' morphological awareness and other important L2 literacy skills such as word reading accuracy. Both NES and ESL students' reflections of their gameplay experiences suggest game design modifications that promote ESL students' willingness to communicate with NES while developing their morphological awareness and practicing their L2 communication and literacy skills.